Chapter Text
Peter
Looking back, this mess started with detention. Or rather, the lack of it.
Come Friday afternoon, Peter was summoned by the Avengers, who were dealing with some HYDRA base close to New York. According to SHIELD files, this was one of the last in the area.
Peter stared blankly at the wall, at the clock ticking by, inching further and further—that is, until, at 3:36 PM, Mr. Stark appeared, tapping impatiently at the classroom window with the metal fingers of the Mark 43, his newest suit. And also, a model that was still partially under construction. Peter wasn’t about to cuss out Tony in front of his confused, astounded classmates, though, so he’d settled for a lethal side-eye.
Needless to say, Principal Morita hadn’t been happy about letting Iron Man take a high school kid out of detention for what appeared to be no reason, and he wasn’t about to back down just because it was Tony Stark asking.
Even more suspicious to the principal was the fact that Tony Stark was here at all, considering he wasn’t one of Peter’s emergency contacts or guardians. In fact, Tony had forgotten to file Peter’s intern paperwork, so all the staff thought he was lying about said internship.
Tony Stark wasn’t about to back down to a high school principal and let Peter sit in detention when he was needed to kick some HYDRA ass, though. So they worked out some deal in Principal Morita’s office, next to the framed photo of Captain America from the 1940s and the Academic Decathlon trophies from years ago that they had no cabinet space for in the hall.
Which is how Peter ended up in the administration office, waiting for some new kid named Perseus Jackson.
It’s a strange name, he thought. A Greek hero. He recognized the name from Academic Decathlon—they were all studying Greek Mythology just yesterday at Betty’s house. Perseus. The only things Peter could remember about the hero were that he survived and that he killed Medusa.
Of course, the new kid wouldn’t have killed Medusa. But an interesting name nevertheless.
Peter tapped his foot on the tiled floor, buzzing with impatience. It was already a minute past eight, when every student was supposed to be present for homeroom. Either this new kid hadn’t realized, he’d slept in, or he just had bad attendance in general.
Not that Peter could comment on that, with his attendance spotty as the 101 Dalmations and his tendency to fling himself out the classroom windows when the teachers weren’t looking to help the Avengers with some threat or other.
All the awkwardness of meeting said new student was only amplified tenfold by MJ sketching next to him. Her hair was brushed to one side, curls fountaining over her shoulder and onto the tip of her pencil.
She had the same notebook out as in detention earlier, her brow furrowed at—was that a sketch of him? He tore his eyes away and looked at the wall with jerky, nervous movements. Was the sketch a good thing? A bad thing? It was probably bad, Peter thought, considering she called said notebook the crisis notebook.
He(luckily) didn’t have time to dig himself into a deeper mental hole, though. Their admissions director, Ms. Delia, walked through the door. She was a kind woman, and was incredibly patient with Peter when they were sorting out his scholarship. Midtown Tech was notoriously hard to get into and ridiculously expensive if you didn’t have a scholarship to keep you afloat, so Peter had lucked out getting one here—and a fully paid one at that. Plus, she had this little bowl of orange candies on her desk for students passing by the office, and they were delicious.
As much as she loved the students, she was too busy to tour them most of the time, so the job got delegated to students, either as makeup detention(in Peter’s case), for extra credit, or as part of student council responsibilities.
MJ was here to tour another one of the new students as well. Peter knew she did a shit ton of extra credit work and flung herself into her schoolwork vicariously, and got better grades than even Peter and Ned. Shadowing a new kid was probably either because of student council, or it was one of those extra credit projects. Peter had a creeping suspicion MJ was on scholarship too, but he’d never brought it up.
The new kids followed Ms. Delia into the classroom, trailing behind her, standing close. The first thing Peter thought about them was, oh shit, these people are scary. The boy was over six feet tall and black-haired with sea-green eyes. The girl had grey eyes, curly blonde hair, and a stoic expression to rival MJ. Both of them had a grey streak running through the front pieces of their hair and Peter could see where a dagger was barely concealed in the girl’s pant leg. They both wore faded purple shirts, with what would have been letters in the past but were worn down to nothing.
The second thing Peter noticed was the familiar, hardened stone behind their eyes. He didn’t like it, but he knew the look—from when he looked in the mirror and the glass showed him the reflection of someone who’d survived more than anyone should have, let alone a sixteen-year-old kid who hadn’t graduated high school yet. He’d seen the look on Bucky, remembering his torture with HYDRA. He’d seen the look on Tony after the Blip, watching Peter come back to life.
These new students looked more like war-hardened fighters than kids. Maybe this boy had killed Medusa, then, Peter thought sarcastically. Peter wouldn’t put it past the two of them standing in the doorway.
Peter and MJ stood up from the creaky plastic chairs, walking over to the two at the door.
“Annabeth,” the blonde girl said, scanning over MJ. “That’s Percy. He’s my boyfriend, so now you won’t need to ask how we know each other.” She pointed to the boy, with an expression that Peter read as this is my dumbass boyfriend but I still love him anyways. It was quite endearing, actually.
“MJ,” she replied. “Follow me.” Peter could already tell she and Annabeth were going to get along.
Peter turned to face Percy. “I’m Peter, and I’m here to show you around. Perseus?”
“Don’t like the Perseus thing. Makes me feel old.” The guy—Percy, Peter internally corrected—smiled. He seemed quite positive—hell, he even looked excited—about school, which was…interesting. He sounded casual, and he had all the looks of a troublemaker—the glint in his eye, the slight crookedness in his smile—but for some reason Peter felt like he could trust him. His Spidey-sense did too. Up close, Peter could tell his shirt read SPQR in faded, crumbling letters.
Ms. Delia cut in between their greetings. “You both missed homeroom, but your first class starts in about three minutes. MJ, you’ll be shadowing Annabeth, and Peter, you’ll be shadowing Percy, if you didn’t already know that. Have a good day, kids!”
Peter turned to face Percy. “Your first class is chemistry, right?” Peter loved chemistry, especially during late nights at Tony’s lab, but he didn’t quite share the same love for the class. Mr. Harrington was his favourite teacher, but their work was dreadfully boring, and neither Ned nor MJ were in the class. It had been a long two and a half months of chemistry he already knew without them. At least they were in all his other classes.
“I think so,” Percy replied, pulling out a schedule from the back pocket of his jeans.
Next to each class there were letters written in a language Peter didn’t understand. It looked like Greek, but he couldn’t be sure. Strange, but he’d seen weirder things before. He brushed it off and continued the tour. “Down here is all the language rooms. Spanish, English, Mandarin; all of that. Up the next flight of stairs are all the science rooms, which is where we’re going.”
Percy nodded.
“That’s the elevator,” Peter said, pointing to the space next to the stairs. “Only the seniors and teachers can use it. We’re juniors, so no luck.” At the sight of the elevator, Percy blanched.
“You okay?” Peter asked.
“Fine,” Percy replied, although he was decidedly not fine. Peter wanted to push more, but he thought against it, considering the guarded look on Percy’s face. He didn’t like people questioning why he got so worked up over small things either, like swimming, or enclosed spaces, or spiders. He kept talking, if only to fill the silence. “For chemistry, we have Mr. Harrington. He’s a nice teacher, but his phone policy is absolute shit. We have to answer calls on speaker. So I recommend turning your phone off.” Peter neglected to say that he didn’t turn his off, mostly because his main contacts were his friends(who were all in class) and famous heroes and vigilantes, and wasn’t like he could just ignore the phone if Nick Fury decided he was needed. The only number he actually had silenced through school was Wade’s. Wade called way too much for Peter’s liking, and he didn’t need his class to know Deadpool was friendly with him.
“That’ll be fine,” Percy replied, waving a hand flippantly. “Don’t have a phone anyways.”
Peter’s jaw dropped open. “You don’t have a phone? You’re seventeen, and going to Midtown, a science and technology school.”
“Um…I don’t have one.” He stared at Peter, acting like it was normal.
“That’s crazy.”
Percy tilted his head to the side. “Not as much as you’d think. Annabeth’s the one that has a phone, but I wouldn’t call her lucky for it.”
“So you share a phone with Annabeth?” Peter asked.
“Yes. It’s hers, so not really sharing, but if I need to call someone it gets the job done,” he replied.
Interesting. More psychopathic than interesting, but whatever. “Well, here’s Mr. Harrington’s class.” Peter held the door open and Percy stepped into the class, muttering a small thanks under his breath.
“Oh, hello,” Mr. Harrington said. “We have a new student today. Perseus Jackson, I believe.” The name piqued Betty and Cindy’s attention for some reason, and they craned their necks to see him, leaning into their desks.
“That’s me. I’ll answer the questions I assume you have. First, yes, I was part of the manhunt four years ago.” The class erupted. Manhunt?
“I’m Percy. Also, don’t take this pen.” Percy laced the last part with a threat. He held up the pen for the class—it was a regular ballpoint pen, although the cap was shiny and looked to be made of metal.
“Thank you, Percy. Now Peter, please take a seat with him at the back. Don’t worry, you were marked here on the attendance list.”
Peter smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Harrington.”
“You’re welcome, Peter. Now…” He pointed at the periodic table on the wall. “We’re only a month away from midterms, so I need to brush you all up on some subjects, the first of which are the chemistry basics. You have from now until Friday to study for a quiz on all the elements, plus the states of matter and basic molecule diagrams, outlined in the book on page 40.”
The class groaned. Peter didn’t really care, considering he knew this already—he ought to, with the whole Stark internship business. He was mainly focused on watching Percy, who didn’t seem to know any of the material and was scribbling everything into his notebook with impressively messy handwriting.
Mr. Harrington wrote out instructions for the lesson on the board, before taking a seat at his desk to grade another class’s papers. Percy squinted at the words, taking a few seconds longer than normal. And by the way Percy’s head turned towards Peter with a raised eyebrow afterwards, he’d noticed the staring.
“Don’t you have to pay attention?” Percy asked. “And not to me.”
“I know the material pretty well already, and I’m good at memorizing things last-minute anyways,” Peter replied.
Percy sighed. “Ah.”
“What about you? Why’re you writing literally everything down? We did a lot of this last year.”
“Dyslexia, ADHD, and also the fact that I’ve missed practically my entire freshman and sophomore year. Annabeth’s mom had to pull so many strings to get us here,” Percy laughed, but it felt forced. “I’m tryna catch up. Besides, I promised Annabeth I’d try.”
Now it was Peter’s turn to be silent. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve had five detentions in the month, and we’re two weeks into November.”
“How? Even I didn’t get that much,” Percy asked, a genuine smile creeping onto his face.
“Just stuff I shouldn’t be doing, because you’ve got a bright future, according to Principal Morita,” he said. Being Spider-Man, he thought.
Percy nodded like he understood.
Maybe he did.
———
Percy was pretty sure this kid was either a demigod or a drug dealer. Leaning towards demigod, because reevaluating, the kid was too nice to deal drugs. They were in third block now—maths—and he’d met Peter’s friends, Ned and scary MJ from the office. He was actually warming up to them, despite knowing them for less than a day. Peter especially seemed like a nice person to be friends with, and seeing he and Ned whisper and work through problems together he thought back to Grover.
Grover was trying to save the earth, and Percy knew it was selfish, but he still missed his best friend. He wished Grover still went to school with him, even though he probably didn’t need the classes, considering he was way older than Percy and had been to so many schools undercover. So he turned his mind back to the schoolwork.
Class was…mildly difficult, but not as bad as he’d thought it would be. He’d learned a lot with Annabeth and through classes over the summer at camp, but he still had a hard time keeping up with school sometimes.
Annabeth was in his maths class too, so he had time to talk to her about Peter during what was supposed to be silent work time. The class was chattering now that the teacher had left the room to print some copies of a worksheet. The students were either afraid of him or curious, but none of them approached him(except for Peter, Ned, and MJ), which he considered to be a success. He didn’t want to put any lives in danger.
“Annabeth, I think Peter’s one of us.” He whispered it, quiet enough that there was no way Peter could hear their conversation.
Annabeth subtly turned her head to look at Peter, who was adjusting his earbuds, then turned back to Percy. “Hmm.”
“He’s got this big bruise on his arm he thinks I didn’t notice, and a scar along the other. He says he’s got spotty attendance, and he’s still somehow the top of the class.”
“The next time we meet with Chiron we’ll tell him,” Annabeth replied. “Not much we can do about it now.” Annabeth paused. “I also know MJ might be onto us. She draws in her sketchbook, the creatures from out the window. Plus she clearly saw the dagger I had hidden in my pant leg.”
Peter, Ned, and MJ were having a hushed conversation as well. Peter kept shooting glances at him and Annabeth. “How do we figure this out? And how do we break it to him? He probably already knows, considering he’s sixteen.”
“Idea. We just ask them.”
Annabeth stared at him like he’d just committed a crime. “And endanger everyone at camp?”
“New idea,” Percy replied. “What if I just bring Riptide out in front of them for a second, let them see what they see, and put it back.”
“That could work,” Annabeth said, “Or we could just test using the mist. You know, the magic veil? The obvious answer? You can still manipulate that, right? Or did you forget?”
“Or that,” Percy said, scribbling another answer into his worksheet. “But can we please do it my way first?”
“Fine.” Annabeth rolled her eyes, but the gesture was fond. “Do it at lunch.”
“If he is, you owe me a drachma,” Percy added hastily. “If he’s not, then you owe me a drachma.”
“You take mine to Iris-message anyways.”
“Yes, but I would like ownership of one. I’ll take good care of it,” Percy replied.
Annabeth sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I’m taking that as a yes.”
They spent the rest of the lesson talking about life in general, like how camp was holding up after the huge battle with Gaea, how Sally and Paul were doing, funny stories about Estelle, or how the redesigns for Olympus were almost finished. Peter, Ned and MJ kept staring from across the classroom.
“That girl creeps me out,” Percy said.
“MJ? I like her,” Annabeth replied, sketching out a column design on her paper. Percy would ask about it, but that would lead to a longer explanation than he’d like, so he chose to stare at her instead. A smile made its way onto his face, just staring at her side profile hunched over her paper, deep in concentration.
“She’s a lot like you.” The way they both loved a challenge, or how MJ always had her nose in a book, like Annabeth. The cynical expressions and doubts.
“She’s good,” Annabeth replied. “Now, let me draw.”
Percy shut up.
———
Peter didn’t like to eavesdrop, because he found that someone with super-hearing listening in on your conversations inspired fear in the hearts of most. As well as the urge to punch said eavesdropper into the nearest wall. It was also an invasion of privacy, which Peter was quite defensive about after he’d had to maintain a secret identity. It’s harder than it looks.
When he heard Percy utter his name, though, he listened in; with the moral defense that they were talking about him, so it was perfectly fine for him to listen.
His super-hearing was much more powerful than he let on to his friends. He could hear all the shuffles of students in the hall, the couple that thought they were being sneaky with their make-out spot, the small buzzing of the teacher’s phone across the room. He could hear everything going on in Midtown High at this very moment. When he was just figuring out his powers, he’d go home every day with a sensory overload not helped by the fact he could still hear everyone in his apartment building.
Since then, he’d learned to control his enhanced senses—especially hearing—better, but he still got sensory overloads and panic attacks over once a week, which was quite annoying when all you wanted to do was get out and patrol.
When he’d told Tony about it, he’d developed hearing aids for Peter, simple devices much like Clint’s, only, they didn’t amplify sound, they muffled it. He wore them all throughout the school day, and pretty much everywhere, even during patrols on the days he felt like he was about to collapse.
Percy was speaking. “—might be one of us.”
He caught sight of Annabeth’s eyes, boring into him. “Hmm,” she said, considering.
One of us? Does he know I’m Spider-Man? Is he a vigilante himself? Do I know him?
“He’s got this big bruise on his arm he thinks I didn’t notice, and a scar along the other. He says he’s got spotty attendance, and he’s still somehow the top of the class,” Percy elaborated. Oh shit, they’re onto me.
“The next time we meet with Chiron we’ll tell him,” Annabeth replied. “Not much we can do about it now.”
Ohnonononononononono—wait, who’s Chiron? I don’t know him. Some kind of leader? Mentor?
“I also know MJ might be onto us. She draws in her sketchbook, the creatures from out the window. Plus she clearly saw the dagger I had hidden in my pant leg.”
A short silence overcame the two of them, and Peter tuned them out. He decided to ignore the creatures part of that sentence momentarily and put together a short list in his mind, because Cindy and Betty always said that conspiracies needed a fleshed-out list of evidence. While Peter wasn’t quite sure this was a conspiracy, maybe it was a good idea to put together some evidence. Just to be sure. Even though he was pretty sure. Maybe about 75%.
Why I think Percy and Annabeth are vigilantes:
- They didn’t show up to school just like me, and Percy says he struggles with the same things, like attendance
- They’re saying I might be one of them, whatever that means
- Annabeth is hiding a dagger on her, and if Natasha’s training is right and I’m seeing things correctly, multiple daggers. Why the fuck would you need multiple daggers at fucking school
- They think MJ’s onto them, and she’s really observant. She managed to figure out I was Spider-Man, so she’d be able to figure them out too
- Something is following them to school
“Peter.” Ned bumped his shoulder. “Peter. You there?”
“Sorry. I was listening in on them. I think they know about…the other thing,” he said.
MJ leaned in towards them. “They’re definitely talking about something suspicious. Peter?”
They both watched the two converse next to them. “So do we want to test this theory?” Annabeth asked, less quiet than before.
“They’re figuring out how to test a theory,” Peter replied, grinding his teeth into tiny little bits.
“Oh no,” Ned whispered. “Wait. What theory?”
“I think they think I’m a vigilante. I know they think MJ knows,” Peter replied.
“Shit,” Ned whispered. “Wait, how do they know?”
“I think they’re vigilantes, Ned.”
———
Lunch came after fourth block, and Percy and Annabeth sat with Peter, Ned, and MJ at their usual lunch table. The food was terrible, as expected. For a ridiculously expensive school, Percy thought they’d have better food. Annabeth pulled some food for herself out of her backpack, and Percy made a mental note to do that tomorrow.
“I can’t believe how terrible Mr. Warren’s class was today,” Ned complained, shovelling a slice of cafeteria pizza into his mouth.
“It’s not that bad,” Annabeth replied. “It’s only three pages.” They were both going to write said papers in Ancient Greek and translate them back into English. It was much easier for them to read and write in Ancient Greek, and his dyslexia wasn’t as bad in Ancient Greek. Annabeth might write her schoolwork directly in English sometimes, but Percy knew she’d have a harder time as well.
Suddenly, Percy felt a presence behind him. He whipped around, taking Riptide out of his pocket and uncapping the pen, holding it with both hands and pointing it at the person behind him. He was vaguely aware of Peter and MJ staring at him, bug-eyed.
“Whoa, new kid, no reason to get all flinchy,” the kid said. He looked greasy, and reminded him somewhat of Smelly Gabe. Percy wanted to kick him out the roof of the school. “Is that a baseball bat? Where’d you get that from?”
“Get out, Flash,” MJ said from behind him. “Get away from Peter.”
“Oh, but—”
“Is he bullying Peter?” Percy asked. He hated bullies. The last time he’d been bullied, the bully had made some new friends and they turned out to be Lastrygonians, who almost killed him. For that reason alone, Percy wanted to throw him into another realm and lock him there.
“His name is Eugene,” Ned whispered to him. “Everyone calls him Flash.”
“That’s really stupid,” Percy whispered back.
Peter nodded, but said, “No, don’t go after him. Better me than anyone else.”
“What the fuck?” Percy asked. “Get away from him before I make your life a living hell, Eugene.”
“You think empty threats are going to work against me?”
Annabeth scoffed. “Empty threats? Count your days, Eugene.” MJ stared him down with the same steely glare.
Flash ran off to another table.
Peter stared at them. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Percy replied.
A lull of silence passed over the table before MJ asked, “Was that a sword?”
“I saw that too,” Peter added.
Ned just looked confused. “I don’t know if they’re talking about the baseball bat, but if they are, that’s kinda suspicious too, Percy.”
“Yeah. That’s Riptide.”
“Your sword has a name?” Peter asked, eyes lit up. “I saw it spring from the pen. How does that work? Is it nanotechnology? I’d love to ask Tony to put that in a suit at some point.”
“Magic,” Percy said, with added jazz hands. “Wait—who’s Tony?”
“Tony Stark. I intern at Stark Industries.”
“Leo would be so awestruck right now,” Annabeth said.
Percy laughed. “The whole cabin was going on about the new suit for days. Imagine one of them getting their hands on a Stark internship.”
“Gods, Leo would never shut up. He already doesn’t shut up about the forges, and they’re fucking communal.”
Peter looked between them like he was witnessing weird birds in one of those nature documentaries teachers made them watch in class at the end of the year. He coughed twice. “You know, if you have any talented enough friends, Mr. Stark might accept some new interns.”
“Normally they’re only for college students,” Ned said, “But Peter works there, so Leo might have a shot.”
“I mean, Harley works there too,” Peter said. “Vague definition of works, but maybe your friend would want to actually work there. I can probably help you with that.”
He’d have to remember to bring that up with Leo at some point. He did owe Leo one, for both the security measures around their apartment and the homing device for Blackjack.
They all heard the bell ring for their next class. Percy eyed his schedule. Gym. Which administration person thought that putting gym right after lunch was a good idea? Because he’d very much like to throttle them.
Gym was easy enough, with all the demigod training and whatnot. Today’s gym class was a ‘Captain America fitness challenge’, which Percy and Annabeth completed with ease. Gym class had nothing on the lava wall.
What concerned him more than the activity, though, was how Peter looked to be in pain the whole session. He looked out-of-breath and a bit paler than he should. It looked like how Annabeth was in Tartarus, trailing along with her broken leg, or how Jason looked after he was stabbed at Odysseus’s Palace; just a bit less severe.
“He’s not okay,” Annabeth said, glancing in Peter’s direction. A drop of red hit Peter’s white shirt, and a tiny red stain bloomed over the side.
“Totally a demigod,” Percy muttered.
Annabeth nodded, sharp and curt. “Yep. So now that we’re almost sure, how do we ask him?”
“Let’s start with trust, I guess. He’s bleeding. Should I go after him, help him stitch whatever that is up?”
Annabeth considered for a second, before replying, “Better safe than sorry.” They both knew it from experience.
So when Peter asked Coach Wilson if he could head to the bathroom, shielding his crimson side from the class, Percy followed him out of the gym and towards the lockers, attempting to be quiet on his feet.
———
Peter stumbled to his locker, clutching at his side. He could feel the pain building up acutely at his side, followed by a slow drip of red onto his white, science-pun adorned t-shirt. And one of his favourites, too. Tragic.
The wound wasn’t too bad itself, but it was one he was hiding from the Avengers, hence why he’d stitched it up himself. It was a stab wound from when he’d went patrolling with Team Red, his group of vigilantes Tony didn’t quite approve of(cough, Deadpool, cough). He loved the man, but sometimes he was a bit overbearing.
So, the whole hiding a stab wound from the people you live with. Natasha’d probably already noticed, and he was almost sure Bucky knew, but neither of them had told Tony yet, so all was well. Except for the fact that his side was leaking blood from uneven stitches.
He grasped at the sewing kit in his locker, then ran as best he could into the nearest boys’ bathroom. He was pulling out the needle and thread when he felt his Spidey-sense flare up, accompanied by faint footsteps.
“Peter?” Percy. “You in here?”
Peter stayed silent, trying to conceal his breaths. The last thing he needed right now was for Percy to find him in a school bathroom, stitching himself up. What a way to lose your secret identity. He sat there silently with the sewing kit and dental floss cupped in his hands.
“Peter, I could see the blood dripping down your side. Come on, man.” He was definitely a vigilante. Pointing out Peter’s injuries(that none of the class had noticed, not even Ned), the ease in which he did PE, the sword and daggers on their persons.
With guilt plastered onto his face, he opened the stall door. “Why’s that your business?” Peter asked.
Percy raised his eyebrows at the sight of the wound, dripping all over Peter’s shirt. “You want me to stitch that back up?”
A strange offer, but one Peter would take nonetheless. Peter nodded, passing Percy the sewing kit and dental floss.
“Peter. Will keeps cursing me out for using dental floss to sew wounds shut. I cannot do this to you.”
Peter stood, wide-eyed with raised eyebrows. “What the fuck? When did you learn how to sew up wounds?”
“Summer.”
“So what am I using to suture this wound, then?”
Percy turned away from him. “Wait a second. I’m going to my locker.”
He waited about one minute(not, in fact, a second), listening to the soft ticks of the hallway clock and the low hum of his classmates’ conversations, muffled through the hearing aids. Sometimes super-hearing sucked, but at times like this it was nice, just to listen to what everyone else perceived as silence, to find a massive soundscape in nothing.
Percy came back, a sewing kit in hand, and locked the bathroom door behind them. Peter made a grab for the kit, but Percy held it back. “Nuh-uh. I’m stitching, not you.”
He didn’t seem to be taking any arguments, so Peter sat on the sink and let Percy stitch up his wounds.
First he dug a cloth out and washed the wound, then rubbed some salve on. Immediately, the pain dulled to a tiny, background ache. It smelled of herbs and honey.
“What’s this salve thing?” I want some of that. Feels like magic, and it’d be much more useful than stopping by Wade’s anytime I get injured.
Percy glanced at the jar, unlabeled barring what looked like a few words in Greek, written in neon pink Sharpie. “Will made it.”
“Who’s this Will you keep mentioning?”
“He’s a friend,” Percy replied vaguely. Much too vague for Peter’s taste.
“And where’d you learn to do this?” Percy’s hands were steady, and Peter barely felt the pokes of the needle into his flesh.
“After getting hurt myself a bunch of times—not my fault, by the way—some of the camp medics taught me how to sew wounds up properly.”
He wasn’t fully listening, though. Now that Peter was almost completely sure Percy was a vigilante, how would he ask? Just pull out the question over lunch? Maybe he’d ask Matt, or Natasha. They’d be much better at this than he was.
Percy knotted the string examining the gash closely before pronouncing the stitching solid enough to hold the next few days as it healed.
“You’re welcome, Peter,” he said, packing everything back into the little white box.
Peter glanced in the mirror, shirt lifted a little so he could see the wound. The work wasn’t exactly even, but it still was neat in a way—neater than Peter’s own stitching, at least.
“Oh, uh, Percy?” he asked. “Can I have some of that pain-numbing stuff?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Take the jar.”
“I can’t take all of it.” He couldn’t just accept a gift from this kid he’d known for what, one day?
“I’ll just get another jar. Tell me when you run out as well.”
“Thank you,” Peter said.
Percy left the room with the sewing kit, disappearing into the hallway now teeming with students.